Delia looked at her cousin with a vague sense of apprehension. What new mystery did this strange request conceal? But no—such a doubt as flitted across her mind was inadmissible. She was too sure of her Tina!
“I confess I don’t understand, Charlotte. You surely feel that, on the night before her wedding, a girl ought to have a mother’s counsel, a mother’s....”
“Yes; I feel that.” Charlotte Lovell took a hurried breath. “But the question is: which of us is her mother?”
Delia drew back involuntarily. “Which of us—?” she stammered.
“Yes. Oh, don’t imagine it’s the first time I’ve asked myself the question! There—I mean to be calm; quite calm. I don’t intend to go back to the past. I’ve accepted—accepted everything—gratefully. Only tonight—just tonight....”
Delia felt the rush of pity which always prevailed over every other sensation in her rare interchanges of truth with Charlotte Lovell. Her throat filled with tears, and she remained silent.
“Just tonight,” Charlotte concluded, “I’m her mother.”
“Charlotte! You’re not going to tell her so—not now?” broke involuntarily from Delia.
Charlotte gave a faint laugh. “If I did, should you hate it as much as all that?”
“Hate it? What a word, between us!”